


Cultural Allusions

by englishable



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 07:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4129803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishable/pseuds/englishable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them were paying much attention back in May of 2001, and so neither of them really get what’s so amusing about being called “Shrek and Fiona.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cultural Allusions

**Author's Note:**

> I claim no credit for this joke. I got it from Tumblr, although it’s appeared in several other places since; the next logical step was to just run with it, since that’s in all probability what Natasha would do. Also, the concept was irresistible and I am weak. 
> 
> My most sincere apologies, and I hope I’m not overstepping when I assume you’re all familiar with “Shrek.”

…

In May of 2001, Robert Bruce Banner (no aliases yet, although he prefers to go by his middle name) is thirty-one years old. He will turn thirty-two in December. His life centers around the study of anti-electron collision and its production of gamma ray photons, protein-lesion yields and viability in irradiated cells, an 8-bit TTL computer he’s been putting together from scrap, and a woman named Elizabeth Ross whom he has earnest hopes of marrying.

In May of 2001, Natalia Alianovna Romanova (alias “Natasha Romanoff,” alias “Black Widow,” alias “Whatever the Plot Requires”) is sixteen years old. She might turn seventeen in November. Her life centers around the sound of her own heartbeat inside her ears, the feeling of her own hands and arms as she washes off other people’s blood, the sight of a newly-made scar that runs horizontal across her lower abdomen, and the general idea of not getting herself killed. This shapes up to be a rather all-consuming avocation.

So neither party, understandably enough, is paying much attention to the activity of DreamWorks Studios, or a certain movie it promotes and releases that particular month.

(Bruce may vaguely note a period of several weeks during which he cannot turn around in the supermarket without seeing a green-faced creature – what was on its head, suction cups? – decorating the front of every cereal box and cookie package, but the image leaves no lasting impression. 

Natalia-Natasha-Black Widow, meanwhile, does not go to the cinemas. She already spends enough time sitting by herself in the dark, waiting for things to happen. Why give away her money for more of the same?)

…

And this is why, thirteen years later or so, they are both mildly baffled when Tony Stark’s voice comes booming through the transmitters strapped to their ears.

_“Hey! Shrek and Fiona! You guys wanna take out that anti-aircraft gun on the northwest tower, or am I interrupting something more important?”_

Clint’s laughter crackles with static.  _“I wouldn't mind you doing something about the tank, either. It’s a real pain in the ass.”_

Bruce jolts to his feet, pulling a shirt over his head. He unbuckles a belt that holds up pants several sizes too big for him while Natasha finishes strapping on the ballistic vest and combat helmet. She is sliding a magazine of reinforced hollow-points into her pistol, preparing to open the plane’s bay door, when she hears Bruce come to a halt.

“…Wait, that was supposed to be a Code Green, wasn’t it? I didn’t know we’d changed the protocol.”

Natasha turns to him. He holds the shirt crumpled up against his darkly-thatched chest, his expression constrained and anticipatory like someone about to step willingly off a cliff.

(Which is an accurate comparison, really.)

A snap of gunfire, made small and frivolous by the intervening distance, sounds from somewhere outside.

“No, Stark didn’t mention anything about it to me.” Natasha brings the transmitter against her mouth. “Stark, was that a Code Green? Clarify terms ‘Shrek,’ ‘Fiona.’”

_“Oh my God, I don’t believe this. It’s like having three nonagenarians for the price of one – yes, this is a Code Green. If you’d be so kind as to grace us with your presence.”_

“Affirmative.”

_“Seriously, though, ‘Shrek’?  Our team includes a man born when the Ottoman Empire still existed and a guy whose weapon of choice dates back to the Mesolithic Period, and you two are the ones falling down on pop culture ref– ”_

_“Stark, whenever you make that joke I remind you it was the Paleolithic Period, not the – ”  
_

Natasha switches the signal off and nods to Bruce.

“If you and the Big Guy can take control of that tower without damaging the gun, I’ll set myself up there and see if these arms dealers actually know what they’re doing.” Something that sounds like a smooth-bore cannon fires about three hundred yards away. Lights in the cabin flicker. “And if you happen to remember it, I’ve always wanted to drive a tank.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Bruce says. “The armor-piercing rounds might tickle.” 

“Oh, you spoil me.” Natasha drops an ammunition belt across her chest. “Anything I should know?” 

He is rubbing his hands quickly together, and she can almost hear the tempo of his heartbeat increase. Energy rises and builds around her, like the air before a lightning strike. It makes hair on the back of her neck stand up. 

(Where does he get the strength to contain it, she has often wondered, how does he hold it in? How does he survive with that rage and power pacing just beneath the surface of his skin?) 

 “Yes.” His hands stop. “If the defusing tactic doesn’t work –”

“It’s worked the last two times.”

“But if it doesn’t work  _this_ time, fall back and let Tony bring Veronica in. He’s been under a lot of stress lately, he might need the catharsis.”

“Sure, like a hole in the head. And we should talk about a better name for it than ‘defusing’ when you get back.” The bay door hisses open. Cold sunlight nails her eyes, and frozen mud crackles underfoot when she jumps out. “Race you there.”

The last thing Natasha catches a glimpse of is Bruce, rolling out a stiffness in his shoulder as he moves to follow her.

Then comes a moment of violent, sudden release that sends bright spikes of adrenalin through her blood, and he changes in three steps to become a great shadow leaping overhead. 

The earth shudders upon impact. Armor-piercing rounds strike him, useless bursts of fire and smoke. 

In one huge, eliding sequence of motions, like the working of an piston engine, he seizes the tank by its barrel and tears off the hatch and flings away the men crouched inside, and with that same carry-through momentum sends the tank swinging backwards-upwards-downwards to land directly in her path. 

“Show off,” Natasha calls.

(But seriously, who the hell are Shrek and Fiona?)

…

Several days later, they sit on opposite ends of the lounge’s couch as a film’s credits roll. 

Bruce can name the song that is playing, because his mother had owned The Monkees album it was first recorded on, but he cannot recognize the cover artist. The inside of Natasha’s cheek is somewhat sore, owing to the fact that she has bitten it multiple times in the past hour to keep herself from laughing.

( _”Look, you love this woman, don’t you?…You wanna hold her?…Please her? Then you've gotta, gotta try a little tender-neh-ess!…The chicks love that romantic crap!”_ ) 

She snatches a few peripheral glances at Bruce, who has a habit of folding both legs up against his chest in order to occupy as little space as possible. 

His hair is combed and damp from the shower, because she’d sprung this idea on him shortly after 7:30 AM when he’d have the fewest excuses, although the hair has begun to curl above his shirt collar as it dries. His face looks raw, either from the recent shave with a dull razorblade – he can’t get his blood on anything, he’s explained – or the fact that he hasn’t slept much. Probably both. 

He turns his head to look at her, opens his mouth in a moment of slack indecision, and their ensuing conversation runs thus: 

“So. Am I drawing hasty conclusions, or was the dragon really meant to be the donkey’s, ah…Feel free to correct me if that wasn’t your interpretation.”

“Nope, you’re right. According to the Internet, they have children together in the sequels.”

“That – that really doesn’t seem like something that belongs in a family-oriented film, don’t you think? It doesn’t make an even remote amount of biological sense, either. It completely ignores every known pre-and-post zygotic mechanism.”

“Seriously, Bruce? Hundreds of innocent fairytale creatures are victimized by the unlawful exercise of eminent domain, and  _that’s_  the cause you want to take up?”

“Willing suspension of disbelief can only be carried so far. At least the eminent domain part was plausible…Did you want the rest of this popcorn?”

“Thank you…I did like that sequence with Robin Hood’s men, though. I should try swinging in on a vine every now and then, see what reaction it gets.”

“I thought you’d be able to appreciate that. At least her character turned out to be a somewhat apt comparison on Tony’s part. I’m not sure about everything else.”

“Well, now we get the joke.”

“Yes.”

“…And wait, why am I the only apt comparison that was made here? Are you saying you’ve never once thought of yourself as an individual with multiple and onion-like  _–”_

“Natasha–”

_“– Layers?”_

…

Bruce Banner (alias “The Hulk” or “The Big Guy,” depending on whom you ask) is forty-five years old. He completed the study on anti-electron collision to the tune of minor but enthusiastic praise; he completed the research on irradiated cell survival with that rare, mythological variety of success so astonishing and unexpected that it proves indistinguishable from catastrophe. He put aside the computer and built a birdhouse in the shape of a spaceship instead, his reason being that it gave him more cause to be outside during the first warm days of spring.  

Elizabeth Ross, now Elizabeth Samson, calls him on the phone every few months or so to talk, after their five years of silence. Sometimes they send e-mails.  

Natasha Romanoff (alias “Black Widow,” although aliases have become somewhat obsolete for her now) is thirty. Her heartbeat and her hands and her life are all still there, still hers, despite unnumbered attempts to make it otherwise. The scar is still there, too, although it has faded and hardened and silvered as scars are wont to do with the passage of time. 

And she watches movies nowadays, if only because it’s a chance to have someone else sitting and waiting there in the dark alongside her. 

Together, their lives center around the dismantlement of an international terrorist organization, the defense of the humanity against possible extinction, the distance between points in the sort of four-cornered relationship that having aliases creates, and – at the moment – the very serious business of flicking popcorn kernels at one another. 

 …

And on their next mission, once they’re out over the Atlantic Ocean and reasonably far from the possibility of landing, Natasha hacks into and overrides the quinjet’s sound system.  

“I thought we might make the trip more enjoyable,” she announces. “I’d like everyone to know that this first track comes specifically at Stark’s recommendation.”

A Smash Mouth song, rendered in crystalline and resonating quality through the jet’s bass boost circuits and subsonic filters, begins to play. Tony Stark is given some cause to regret his life choices. 

Bruce and Natasha, for a change, are not.

_“I thought love was only true in fairytales,”_  and Natasha hums blithely, loudly along as she taps her feet,  _“meant for someone else, but not for me.”_

(They still don’t quite get the joke yet, or at least not its further implications, but that’s understandable as well. Give it time.)

…


End file.
